Antony and Cleopatra - Love Story or Tragedy

Summary: Explores the William Shakespeare play, Antony and Cleopatra. Examines if the story is a tragedy or a love story. Provides passages from the text to support the thesis.

Question

`Shakespeare doesn't organize his tragedy as a drama of love between Antony and Cleopatra, but as a drama of the rise and fall of Antony in the struggle for world leadership'. What is your view"

Answer

Fundamentally, I disagree with this interpretation of the play. Indeed we do see the fall of the great Marc Antony but the play never actually depicts scenes of his rise to prominence. `Antony and Cleopatra' is renowned as one of the greatest love stories of all time and I align myself with this conception.

In this play, Antony's rise to greatness is assumed from `Julius Caesar' and from the stories and references the audience is given by other characters. This can be seen in Caesar's first scene in the play, Act 1 sc4, Caesar states: